In The Autumn Leaves ...

“The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

I see your lips, the summer kisses

The sun-burned hands I used to hold

 

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song

But I miss you most of all my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall …”

   ~ “Autumn Leaves”

  ~written 1945, released 1946

 ~Popular song & jazz standard composed by Joseph Kosma with original lyrics by Jacques Prevert in French, & later by Johnny Mercer in English. An instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams was a number one best seller in the U.S. Billboard charts of 1955. It was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1955 and many other artists throughout the years, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra & Tom Jones.

 

I captured this candid shot of a couple walking in step with one another along the Saucon Rail Trail, Hellertown, Pennsylvania on a beautiful October afternoon.

 

Though autumn is the season of colorful fall foliage, I thought presenting the image in infrared was in tune with the melancholy mood of that beautiful song, “Autumn Leaves.”

The Peace Of Wild Things ...

 “… I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief …

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

 ~ “The Peace of Wild Things”

 ~ Wendell Berry

 ~ born 1934

 ~ American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic & farmer

I came into the peace of wild things when I spotted two whitetail deer button bucks, at right, crossing the Saucon Creek, tinged with the gold of a looming late October sunset, as other deer soak in the beauty of autumn along the Saucon Rail Trail, Hellertown, Pennsylvania.

 

Jewels Of Winter ...

“Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hearty celebration … in the very teeth of winter.”

               ~ Louise Beebe Wilder

            ~American gardening writer & designer

      whose books are now considered classics         of their era

                              ~ 1878 ~ 1938

 

Crocuses and daffodils are beautiful and wonderful to see, but the very first sign of spring being just around the corner are snowdrops – making them the jewels of winter. I captured these snowdrops in this infrared image on a late February afternoon along the Saucon Rail Trail in Lower Saucon Township, Hellertown, Pennsylvania.

 

Snowdrops are hardy perennial, winter-flowering plants that are often heralded as the first sign of spring. They bloom as early as January or February whatever the weather ~ they will even push through frozen, snow-covered ground.

 

Snowdrops are also known as Candlemas Bells, as they were gathered at Candlemas February 2 to decorate churches before the Reformation. They were symbols of purity, which was connected to the rite of purification that Mary observed by going to the temple forty days after Christmas. The festival was formerly known in the Roman Catholic Church as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is now known as the Presentation of the Lord. In the Anglican Church it is called the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. During Candlemas, all of the candles to be used in the church for the coming year are blessed, and the faithful are invited to bring their own candles so that they can be blessed and used in the home for prayer throughout the year.

 

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, named the snowdrop the Galanthus nivalis, “milk flower of the snow,” in 1753.